AfriGeneas Free Persons of Color Forum

FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS of MD and DE

FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS of Maryland and Delaware
from the Colonial Period to 1810

Paul Heinegg has here assembled genealogical evidence on more than 300 Maryland and Delaware black families (naming nearly 6,000 individuals). The work contains copious documentation from the federal censuses of 1790 to 1810 and colonial sources consulted at the Maryland Hall of Records, county archives, and other repositories. His documentation proves that most of these free black families descended from mixed-race children who were the progeny of white women and African-American men. While some of these families would claim Native American ancestry, Mr. Heinegg offers evidence that they were, instead, the direct descendants of mixed-race children.